AI Practitioner as a Beacon of Hope – by Wick van der Vaart & David Cooperrider

This new year is calling for a fresh start. Donald Trump has just began his journey as the president of the United States, Europe is awaiting Brexit, and Erdogan has just become a “postmodern sultan” of Turkey, as a dutch newspaper puts it. At the same time, many other things are happening.

When the discourse of fear, exclusion and winning becomes dominant, we have the opportunity to speak a different language, to use words like collaboration, inclusion and hope.This is the challenge of AI Practitioner in the coming years: to be a beacon of hope.

We would like to invite each of you to contribute: to share stories about politicians who want to make a difference in education and care, about bankers who are trustworthy, about businesses and educational institutions as agents of world benefit.

For AI Practitioner, this first issue of 2017 is a fresh start from young contributors. Barbara van Kesteren, Ingeborg Koster-Kooger and Lysanne Beekhof from the Netherlands, themselves all under thirty, invited young people from all over the world to write their stories. They are the future of Appreciative Inquiry.

We are sure that you will like this issue. We want to thank Barbara, Ingeborg, Lysanne and all the other contributors for their time and energy, and Shelagh Aitken who, as always, has done a wonderful job editing this issue.